


A Good Man

by ElDiablito_SF



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Pre-Canon, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-03
Updated: 2014-12-03
Packaged: 2018-02-28 00:05:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2711690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElDiablito_SF/pseuds/ElDiablito_SF
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nyko saves Octavia out of love for Lincoln, but he also leaves Lincoln to his fate because of Octavia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Good Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BeaRyan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeaRyan/gifts).



> Bea, I hope you're happy!
> 
>  
> 
> Assume spoilers through 2x05

They couldn’t be more different, Nyko thinks, as they stand at the foot of the Sacred Oak and clasp each other’s forearms in what could very well be a final greeting. Nyko - the healer; Lincoln - the warrior. Nyko - the gentle-hearted homebody; Lincoln - the hot-headed renegade. One with so much hair on his head as to hide the handsome features beneath (the piercing blue eyes and soft lips that Lincoln’s own lips used to press gentle kisses against); and the other with his shaved head, daring anyone who sees him to look at him, look into his eyes, see his fury before they expire at his hand.

“Have you come home to die, brother?” Nyko asks, but already suspects the answer.

“There’s a woman,” Lincoln says. “I left her out there, by the statue. You will save her?”

Nyko lets go of his friend’s arm and averts his eyes.

“You will save her,” Lincoln repeats, and it’s no longer a question, so Nyko just nods and toes at the ground, unable to meet the other man’s piercing gaze.

“And you will die,” he replies.

***

As boys, they had been inseparable, and not just because they had been raised by the same Clan Mother - too many orphans in the Woods Clan. Nyko’s mother had died a warrior’s death, but he couldn’t help but wish she had been a healer, like Lincoln’s mother. Irony wasn’t a concept that Grounders were aware of, but that didn’t stop Nyko from feeling misplaced. He and Lincoln learned everything together - how to kill, but also how to heal. It was clear that Lincoln had never forgotten his mother’s lessons on how to make poison, whereas Nyko had always busied himself with creating new methods of distilling the antidotes.

It came in handy when, in the throws of his youthful rebellion, Lincoln finally took his asininity to a new level and ate the bright orange berries growing by the waterfall, despite Nyko’s assertion that they were likely to be highly toxic. But Lincoln laughed and called Nyko all kinds of things that should have earned him a rock to the face or a spear to the heart. Not that Nyko would ever ruin a face as pretty as Lincoln’s. So then, watching his friend bent over and vomiting into the running water, Nyko shook his head and looked for herbs he could grind up to save his idiotic friend’s life. For the first time.

It was shortly after this incident that Nyko had officially apprenticed himself to be the village’s healer. And Lincoln said he had a surprise for him, that they needed to celebrate. But when they had wandered off into the forest together, Nyko’s friend gave him a shy grin, drew a garland of wild roses out of his satchel and placed it over Nyko’s head of wildly unruly hair.

“For saving my life,” Lincoln said, softly.

“I didn’t do it for you,” Nyko protested, scratching his head where the de-thorned stems pressed into his skull despite the thick cushioning of his dreads. He could feel his cheeks brighten under Lincoln’s searing gaze, and he wished (not for the first time) that his skin was darker so that others couldn’t see him blush so easily.

“You did it for the Clan?” Lincoln asked, breaking their eye contact.

“I did it for myself,” Nyko confessed and plucked one of the flowers out of the garland, handing it to Lincoln. “I don’t think I could bear it without you.”

And that was the first time Lincoln had kissed him.

***

This? This miniscule wisp of a girl is what Lincoln is willing to die for? He can snap her in half while she sleeps. He lifts his foot above her neck but can’t quite bring himself to lower it onto her windpipe. He promised Lincoln, that idiot Lincoln, who came here to _die_ and for _this_. At least let it not be in vain, Nyko decides, and gets to work.

She has pretty eyes, Nyko thinks, once she opens them. Perhaps after all, despite all their overtly apparent differences, there is something of Nyko that Lincoln also sees in her. Nyko knows he’s a fool to even be thinking it as he forces the curative concoction down the sky-girl’s throat. 

He might have a gentle heart, for which Lincoln teased and goaded him their whole lives, but he doesn’t have the small, sinewy curves of this girl’s body. He was never going to be _everything_ to Lincoln, no matter how much he tried, but why _her_? She’s barely older than a child, and a frail one at that, with her wrists the size of daffodil stem and her palms the softness of wild cotton.

He doesn’t fully understand it until she hits him over the head with a rock, and then he laughs, right before everything goes temporarily black.

***

Lincoln was beautiful in that way that Nyko could never be, and his abs were so solid you could actually use them in lieu of mortar to ground up the herbs Nyko used to make his victuals. But, oh, Lincoln lied, spewing words as sweet as honey, telling Nyko how beautiful he was as they rutted against each other, their cocks grinding together as if their intention was to cross spears on the field of battle rather than to find a few moments of solace in each other’s arms.

To make him shut up, Nyko had to take matters in hand - that is, both of their throbbing cocks, sliding against each other in his fist, warm and slick and needy. He watched Lincoln’s eyes roll back, saw his lower lip droop, and he took it between his teeth, pulling on it, sucking it into his mouth. Lincoln’s kisses were hot and spiced with the sweet aftertaste of the mead that Indra had served at the night’s festivities. Nyko’s free hand traveled down the chorded and sinewy expanse of Lincoln’s back to end up cupping one of the glorious orbs of his friend’s ass, and he could barely remember in all the revelry how they ended up here.

“You are a good man, Nyko. You should find yourself a woman.”

“Yeah, maybe you should too.”

“Maybe I will.” Lincoln’s eyes were full of mockery, but also full of heat, and not just because they reflected the sparks of the camp fire. “Need to find someone who can keep up with me, like you can.”

“I should fill your mouth with dirt,” Nyko said, his head involuntarily nodding towards Lincoln’s.

“You should fill it with something else.”

That was a lie - he remembered quite well enough. Knew his own limits, and knew the limits of Indra’s mead. Knew what he was doing when he followed Lincoln into his tent and let the other man throw him down onto the furs before getting on his own knees and placing his hands with deft intent upon Nyko’s thighs, to spread them.

Forcing his mind back to the present moment, Nyko opened his eyes again to see his friend’s face briefly looming above him. Lincoln’s breath was hot against Nyko’s neck, somehow managing to find his skin despite the beard the healer had spent years cultivating, bites interspersed with kisses.

“I’m close,” Lincoln’s words brushed against Nyko’s earlobe as he clenched his fingers tighter and twisted roughly on the upstroke. He knew what to do; he had done it many times before.

When several days later Lincoln was no where to be found, Nyko thought nothing of it. He had always returned before. He’d return again.

***

She’s more than meets the eyes, this Octavia of the Sky People, he’ll give her that. Tiny fists that bite like an asp. Lincoln would laugh if he could see him now, on his knees, with Lincoln’s sky-girl lover pressing that blade against his neck. He should fight back, but he can’t. He promised Lincoln to help her, and now he too will likely die for it.

As night falls, she secures his bonds and waits.

Nyko knows Lincoln must love her, he wouldn’t have stayed away so long otherwise. He wouldn’t return now only to face disgrace and execution. A part of him hopes Lincoln is already dead so that he can soon join him. A part of him wishes Lincoln was dead because he had betrayed them. No, not the Woods Clan - he had betrayed _them_. 

“Do you love him?” he asks the girl, even though the answer is painfully obvious. She would do anything for Lincoln, just as he would. She doesn’t reply, only goes on pacing, her eyes darting in every direction like a wild cat’s. “It’s okay that you do, you know. He’s easy to love,” he adds, no longer speaking to her as much as talking to himself. She doesn’t reply, but he can almost hear her heart beat like a hummingbird inside her chest. “Looks like you’ll have to kill me,” he says, his smile both doubtful and hopeful. Could she do it? He sure hopes so - for both their sakes.

“He’s hurt!” the sky-girl spits out.

“He should be dead.” Nyko wonders whether Indra’s words are intended as much for him as they are for Octavia and Lincoln.

His friend takes the first, hobbled step towards them and he feels the small push of Octavia’s asp-like fist against his back.

“Sorry,” she whispers in his ear, and he knows that she means it. The thing is, she has no idea the extent to which she should be apologizing to him. That rock to the head was the least of her trespasses.

If he could say it at all, he says it only with a look, and he can sense the chagrin and remorse emanating back at him from Lincoln’s broken face. It’s only a look, but they’re brothers, they don’t need to speak words to speak volumes.

He’s happy when the Reapers come.

***

Lincoln’s mother passed away from a fever, leaving Nyko the only healer of the Woods Clan. For days he couldn’t meet Lincoln’s eyes, blaming himself for not being able to save her. It was only Lincoln’s own reminder that he saved the rest of the village by keeping the poor woman in quarantine that finally got through to him. And then Nyko was the one who wept.

They lay on the grass next to each other, palm pressed against palm, the open sky a canopy of sparkling diamonds above them.

“Do you think those are souls of the departed, as the legends say?” Lincoln asked, no doubt trying to pick out with his eyes which one of the distant celestial bodies resembled his mother most.

“Your mother used to say that they were burning planets, like Earth, only far, far away. Exploding in the distance.” Nyko sighed and berated himself for not being able to fully believe either version of the story. He squeezed Lincoln’s hand.

“It’s a beautiful death, either way,” Lincoln pressed back and rolled onto his side. “When I die, you must pick one and name it after me.” His voice teetered between a fettered jest and heart-felt melancholy.

“I’d rather ink you into my skin, to keep you closer,” Nyko replied and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to think about the stars or beautiful deaths anymore.

***

“He was a good man,” Nyko tells Octavia of the Sky People. 

He says _was_ with conviction, but he is lying. If Lincoln had really been dead, he would have felt it in his very soul. He has to lie though, because he wants her to hurt, he wants her to know what it feels like to lose him. 

No. Lincoln will return, and Nyko is certain of it. He always returns.


End file.
